


Faded Mist

by Hayato (TheLennyBunny)



Series: Shades of the World [2]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, Gen, corresponding tag on tumblr: Green Sky AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 10:42:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16852528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLennyBunny/pseuds/Hayato
Summary: They've drifted so long they've forgotten the year, the time. They still remember the faces and feel of Flames, though.





	Faded Mist

They- they, always she-and-he at this age- meet the boy at an age they no longer count, when he isn’t really a boy but isn’t really a man. The world around them has been changing at an unprecedented rate and ever since Tsunayoshi’s Fading, they hadn’t taken much interest in it. Weak as the mafia was, it didn’t hold up to the future, so his wishes were moot. Weak as society was, she never took any interest past those that had saved her.

So they meet him at an age they don’t count, after they’ve been wandering cities for countless days and nights, obliterating the criminals that the heroes and police don’t touch. Police abhor but hardly catch rapists, heroes sneer but don’t stop parents with free wrists and hard palms, and it means they pick up the slack. They don’t call themselves heroes, because they’re criminals too. But they’ll fill in that space.

And one of his, the Mist that they’ve heard of through the network as being not so singular as them, is the one to find them. Finds them curling horrors and fears into the brain of a felon who’d thought it kind to try and skin a wandering drunkard. The drunkard has orange eyes and spiky hair, and a stutter even when coherent. They’re sentimental.

They destroy him though and the Mist finds them, curling around them as his Other vibrates and hisses. She shields and he smiles and they both pause as they feel a familiar presence, one they’d given up when Tsunayoshi had passed his rings onto that fool boy. They cock her head, glancing at his hands-neck-waist as he narrows his eyes at them and the felon. The drunkard is long gone, and the felon is whimpering a puddle of his own waste.

“Vigilantism is illegal,” They point out, like that has any bearing on what they’re doing. They tilt their heads and smile with her mouth, and the Mist steps back. They spot a glimmer on his left thumb and it feels like seeing an old friend, almost.

“What makes you think we’re trying to play hero?” They ask with his mouth.

“What makes you think we’re not already illegal?” They ask with hers. The little birdy cocks their head further and curls their tendrils of darkness further around them. They notice with a certain amount of glee the embroidery on his kimono, purple and green mist curling up his side.

“You’re not villains,” They say, and it’s with a certainty that throws them-him for a moment. They-she bows her head though, because what they are and aren’t don’t conform to this new society.

The little birdy finally shakes their head and grabs the felon their shadow. They watch in fascination as they bind him, hold him tight and hard and dial for the police. As they speak, they glance at them pointedly as they mention one criminal, subdued and ready for processing. 

They disappear before the police appear. They don’t leave.

* * *

The next to see them, meet them is the stoic Cloud, a man done in blues and indigos in an outfit that seems to be some interesting mix of suit and yukata. He patrols sporadically, most used to organised operations and rescue efforts. As a person he doesn’t approach others outside the circle, doesn’t play nice. He reminds them of the Beast of Namimori, fierce and closed-off to all but a select few.

He stops them when patrolling on another night like the first, narrowly stopping them from destroying an abomination that had been rampaging, powers out of control and mind desperate for mercy. 

Victim secured and paramedics called, he watches them idly, eyes lazily tracking them as they fiddle with their cuffs. He thinks them trapped by them maybe, the inhibitors inlaid meant to do something. Maybe if they had the newly-formed powers, they would.

“You’re the ones Fumikage met, aren’t you?”

Oho, so the birdy had a name. They smile with her mouth and shrug with his shoulders, and it makes him frown and snort. There’s the sound of sirens in the distance, the few on the streets turning their heads, and they make to take off their cuffs, tossing them back to the so-named hero.

He catches them and flashes back a gut of purple flame, something they react to instinctively- throw up a barrier of indigo-white-blue plants, hurl a trident through the air and watch him dodge and raise a single, red brow.

They’re almost caught, frozen as they are by the actions. He watches them fade into nothing and taps at the ring around his neck, considering. 

* * *

They meet the third, the penultimate, as they visit Namimori. It’s still the same as it was when he lived, small houses and small people and men and women that don’t bother judging the insanity of their neighbours. Any strangeness is common now with the advent of Quirks. No one bats an eye at their purple-and-blue hair or strange pupils.

They sit in a cafe long-demolished and rebuilt and drink coffee, and he sits next to them in a hoodie and jeans, freckles concealed and hair hidden. They glance up with his eyes and catch the dropping teacup with her hands, and both stop and stare.

“You were his,” He says, confident and sympathetic but not patronising, “Weren’t you?”

They tilt her head blink with his eyes and open their mouths. They don’t speak. They haven’t been truly recognised in over half a century. He smiles, a sad thing that spears deep combined with the amber of his eyes.

“How long has it been since you were left Unanchored, Mukuro-ojiisan, Chrome-obaasan?” 

Her lips quiver. He laughs and barely manages to stop himself before it goes out of control, a wild thing. “Do you know how long,” He gets through chuckles, “It’s been since I heard that name?”

“Too long,” Midoriya Izuku says, and he isn’t wrong.

* * *

His circle is a strong one. They can feel the bonds linking them, not just to him but to each other. It reminds them of how it was with the others in the beginning, before graduation and Nono’s death and the twins’ births. It’s nostalgic and just a bit painful for her. It’s bitter for him, the reminder that the mafia was the best moments of his life somehow.

He gives them a number and an address, tells them to drop by if they ever need to, want to, and leaves them be. No pressure, no demands, a simple offer and a smile that shows nothing but patience. Another reminder. 

They go to his office. It’s decorated with pictures, paintings, newspaper clippings of successful missions and near-misses. In the midst of it, hidden like needles in the stacks are small pictures, obviously old and carefully-preserved. They show a green-haired girl with a short man, two children playing together, a group clustered around a table as they laugh. She stops at one of a wedding, Ryohei ecstatic as he swings Hana. He stops at another, candid as a girl laughs at vines picking her up and juggling her fireworks in the background.

“They’re all part of why we’re an agency,” Midoriya says, silent as he appears behind them, “So I thought it’d be appropriate?”

“You have the rings,” He says instead of answering. Midoriya smiles, rueful and bitter at the same time.

“Giotto gave them to me when I was sixteen. I didn’t see any reason not to use them, especially if we could finally use them for good.”

Giotto, a boy draped in the mannerisms and manipulations of mafiosi and the compassion of a desperate civilian. It was a wonder he had made it out even remotely well-adjusted, hadn’t fled like his sister. He snorts at the attempted redemption, too late and too little, and she sighs. The little boy they’d known had long-disappeared by the age of Quirks. 

They keep looking around the office, read articles of a “Universal Quirk” and the debut of one of the most effective hero agencies since Vongola. Listen to the blond with spiky hair bellow down the phone about expenditures, telling someone to stop destroying buildings unless they plan to pay with their inheritance.

They look between each other as Midoriya talks to his Rain, a spindly man that seems more bone than person once you look past the illusions. It’s not the same. The Storm is loud but he’s aggressive, ready to attack at any moment. The Lightning is obnoxious but polite, ready to apologise at any moment, the Sun energetic but contained, the Cloud closed-off but passive. Midoriya himself is too muscled, too confident, too comfortable in his own skin. But. 

But.

“It’s our own home away from home,” Izuku-kun jokes as he approaches again, slipping on a familiar ring. “What do you think?”

“You remind us of him,” Mukuro says.

“You remind us of what he wanted,” Nagi says. She leans on Mukuro, breathing in and basking in the Flames, the connections yet separation of them all and brushing hair from the hole that was her eye. “I think he would have been proud to see one of his descendants manage what he hadn’t.”

Izuku-kun falters and stares at them for a long moment. He drops his eyes as he murmurs, “Obaa-chan always said he was a good man. I- I think I would have liked to meet him.”

They huff but then Mukuro pauses, remembers the familiar glimmers and memories past. He holds out a hand and Izuku-kun cocks his head for a moment before offering his own, frowning. The Mist breathes in, concentrates, and Flares, summoning unfamiliar-yet-warm Sky to touch his own. Izuku-kun blinks, the ring on his finger shines, and the hero shivers and locks up as a flicker appears in the air.

It builds, gains colour and definition until a familiar figure, a worn one, stands in front of them. It’s salt in the wound to see him again, even as they ache in nostalgia. Amber eyes open and look around before focusing on them, shifting to him.

Tsunayoshi smiles as he bows to Izuku-kun.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, my boy. It’s been a long time coming.”

**Author's Note:**

> dunno how long thisll up be but >> thelennystorm.tumblr.com


End file.
